The numbers are in and by all accounts Lil Wayne’s ‘I Am Still Music‘ tour was a huge success. According to MTV the U.S. leg which kicked off March 18 in Buffalo, New York and hit 60 cities before winding down September 11 in The Woodlands, Texas grossed $47 million dollars.

The tour also included dates in Canada, Australia, South Africa and Fiji.

“For so many years, critics have claimed that hip hop tours would never be successful. Lil Wayne has put the nail in the coffin of that idea,” said Wayne’s manager Cortez Bryant. “2011 has seen Lil Wayne further cement his status as a headline arena artist in the US & Canada. The I Am Still Music run exceeded our own expectations. The amount of tickets he sold in both primary and secondary markets across the country was phenomenal and we are now focusing on the expansion of his global success.”

YMCMB plans to build on the tour’s success by keeping it going into 2012.

“One of our goals for Wayne’s touring business at the start of this cycle was to expand his reach outside of North America. We feel there is a huge opportunity to build Wayne into a true global touring force,” adds Shawn Gee, Wayne’s tour manager. “We recently completed a string of dates in Australia and South Africa where Wayne played in stadiums, with Eminem, in Melbourne in front of 65,000 fans and arenas in Johannesburg and Capetown. In 2012 we plan to build on this international success and tour Europe and South America to further expand his global reach.”